Professional Development


7 - Areas of application
Emotional intelligence has as much of a vast range of applications as human behavior. Nevertheless, it is a good idea to discuss this in more detail, for there are specific areas where it may be useful to act guided by our emotional intelligence. One of them is self-awareness - the understanding of ourselves. A good area to apply our emotional intelligence is to be able to distinguish, at a given moment, the reality from our feelings toward the situation. Another is personal decision making: when decisions whose consequences deeply and directly affect us must be made, it is extremely difficult to remain calm and rational and, therefore, to avoid making such decisions if we take into account what we like, what we appreciate and what will make us happy or sad. One thing is to hope and to desire; another is what is suitable or convenient for us. What we hope and desire belongs to the emotional realm, while what is suitable and convenient for us belongs to the rational realm. This is a matter of managing your feelings, which does not mean to feel or not, but to act or not act based on the feelings we have.Stress management is another aspect worth mentioning. Stress is an emotional state that derives from, and affects, our behavior. In many instances, it is absolutely necessary for us to be able to regain our peace of mind and calm, which results from our capacity for self-relaxation. On the other hand, by empathy we mean the ability to understand another person's feelings. To understand does not mean to agree, but empathy is vital for interpersonal communication. It is the ability to understand the point of view of the other and to see things from the other's perspective. It is important to be able to understand others' emotions, to identify others' emotional states and, based on that, to take actions that will lead to a successful outcome of a common goal. The same can be said for communication. It is not merely a matter of showing empathy, but also to establish the focus of our own emotions. It is difficult to communicate when you are yelling at someone, so you should analyze whether yelling is what you must, or simply want, to do. The self-opening concept refers to opening yourself to the world around you, to be able to free yourself of the armor you created at some given time to protect yourself, to be able to welcome contrasts, criticism and feedback. To do so, you must react against emotions such as embarrassment, fear or precaution. Likewise, responsibility means the capacity to fulfill your commitments, albeit doing so does not always results in satisfaction or produce positive emotions. Another application is assertiveness, which is the capacity to communicate with the awareness of your obligations to others while demanding that they also respect your rights. The association between empathy and assertive communication is, therefore, essential. The concept of group dynamics encompasses issues such as leading a meeting, team management, group coordination, among others, that require strong empathy, communication, self-control and self-understanding skills; that is, to be fully able to apply your emotional intelligence.As to conflict resolution, it is worth mentioning that we have all had experiences that have taught us that conflict solving requires exercising self-control and the capacity to analyze the causes. After that, using maximum objectivity, it is imperative to apply strategic actions that will lead to a favorable solution to the conflict. Lastly, we will discuss self-motivation. There are moments in which it is hard to make an effort, to work, to pursue something or to be resilient. When your goals require long periods of time to be achieved, self-motivation is absolutely necessary. Motivation is an emotion; from a technical standpoint, it is our driving force in making an effort. Being able to work on emotional intelligence may be very important to help us solve self-motivation issues.